Who Let the Dog Out?

'Cas, go around the back with Annie,' Dean instructed. 'You know where it is?' he asked Annie.

She nodded. 'Good luck!'

They were going to need luck, preferably by the truckload.

'Ready?' he asked George when the other two had gone. George was still a little greenish and Dean didn't think it was because of his unexpected flight with Angel Air.

'As I'll ever be.'

It would have to be good enough.

'You won't…'

'I won't let anything happen to anything human,' Dean said for what felt like the hundredth time. He'd seen nervous first-time hunters before, but not one of them could even hold a candle to George, who had made fussiness into a form of art.

The garbage container he was after had been conveniently moved a little closer to the door in order to make space for a minivan that parked in front of the neighbouring building, which housed a plumber according to the sign fixed to the door. The lights were off on the premises.

Dean took a short moment to check that the brakes were off, which they were. He nodded at George. 'We're good.'

As good as they were ever going to be anyway.

George straightened up, squared his shoulders and took a deep breath as though it was some kind of ritual. Then he pushed the door open and walked in.

The noise in there could have deafened them.

By the looks of things the vamps were right in the middle of a party. The sound system was on and some vamps were dancing. Others were having shouted conversations. Most of them appeared to be drunk, although there wasn't a bottle in sight.

There were however four people in the middle of the room. Three of them weren't moving. The fourth, a young man, was being fed on by three vamps at once. By the looks of things he wasn't far behind the other three.

This might be both easier and harder than Dean had thought; easier because they were pissed as newts and harder because there were decidedly more of them than Mitchell had thought. There were thirty-odd vamps in the reception area alone, but the door leading to the staff area beyond was open and people were moving there as well. That room was apparently on a different sound system, playing something else that Dean could not possibly call music.

Nobody noticed them at first, so Dean took out his gun and shot a hole in the ceiling to get their attention.

Someone shut down the music in the reception area, but not in the other room. Vamps stopped talking. The three who were feeding dropped their prey – he went down like a stone and didn't get up again – and rose to their feet.

'Evening,' Dean said. 'Sorry for barging in, but we heard you had a party going and me? I love parties.' He grinned at them.

They blinked back.

'Is no one going to offer me a drink?'

Someone switched off the so-called music in the next room as well. Beside him George made a noise somewhere between choking and a whimper.

'Two minutes,' he hissed.

Dean nodded. 'Really, nobody? I've been to funerals that had more booze.' He let his gaze slide over the room, trying to do a quick headcount. Thirty-two in this room alone. Cas and Annie should have got to the backdoor by now, so they couldn't get out that way and as far as he could see, the front door was the only way out of the building on this side.

'You can stay,' said a vamp at the back of the room. 'The dog's got to go.'

'So you're not pet-friendly, then?'

They didn't think this was funny; a couple of them hissed. No sense of humour, these vamps. One of them moved forwards.

'We've just run out of drinks,' he said. 'But at least you're here now.' He blinked. When he opened his eyes again, they were pitch-black. The fangs came out too, but Dean had seen vamps that had a mouthful of them and these two toothpicks weren't anything like as impressive.

'Well, if you're going to be like that…' He looked back at George and grinned. 'Time to get ready.'

Then he pulled out the super soaker he purchased this afternoon. Sam had bitched about that and asked him why, to which Dean had answered why not. Sam had mentioned something about professional standards, so Dean stopped listening at that point. It was not as if he had a boss and sometimes you needed to spice up your own job in order to keep it fun.

This was fun.

Not that the vamps knew it yet; they were too busy laughing.

'That won't save you now,' said the vamped-up dude, licking his lips in anticipation.

Dean hit him first on the general principle of the thing and the laughing turned to screaming instead. Always nice to know that it really did work as expected or he would have really looked like an idiot. 'Holy water,' Dean announced cheerfully. 'Anyone else want a taste?'

Ordinarily he'd be fighting and killing at this stage of the proceedings, but right now his job was to protect George until George could protect himself. Which wouldn't be long. George was quite calmly undressing himself, folding his clothes and putting them in the bag he'd brought along for that purpose.

And by now the vamps were cottoning on. 'What's the dog doing?'

Right on cue George whimpered again and then doubled over in pain. He dropped the bag. 'It's coming,' he choked out.

As if Dean needed telling. But the transformation – Sam had immediately geeked out over the fact that this breed of werewolf actually, physically turned into a wolf, fur included – took a couple of minutes, so he had time, just a little.

'Calm down, everyone, it's just his time of the month.' It did not take them long to figure out what that meant and then the panic really did set in. The smiles slid from their faces. One or two backed away a few steps. 'Nothing to worry about; he'll just rip off a head or two, just like any other regular girl, only with more fur and less blood. Well, not his blood anyway.'

There was naked panic now. The same sort of panic that must have marred their victims' faces before they went in for the kill, Dean imagined. He looked at them again, but they were too pale and still not moving. Dead, if he had to take a guess. Annie might have freed a few, but evidently they had acquired a few more in the intervening time.

Sometimes he loved and hated his job at the very same time.

George whimpered again. It was the most pathetic and girly sound, but it scared the vamps out of their minds. Three of them took off running towards the back and all the others were trying to sidle up to the door as well, never letting George out of their sight.

Dean calmly strode over to the middle of the room, super soaker at the ready just in case, to ascertain the state of the four victims. None of them had a pulse. Not that he had expected it, but at least he knew for sure now. One of them was barely out of his teens. His eyes were open, his face frozen in an expression of horror that the remaining pimples couldn't hide.

He really hated his job sometimes.

As far as Dean was aware, the vamps were going to get everything they deserved.

They were leaderless. It's easy to have a party without anyone in charge, but now that a crisis had so unexpectedly arisen, they needed someone to tell them what to do. And Herrick wasn't here, so the whole lot of them were talking over each other and backing away like headless chickens. Mitchell hadn't been wrong about that.

Someone screamed in the back of the building. It cut off midway. So Cas was in. Presumably Annie was as well. Neither of them could be torn to pieces by a rampaging werewolf; Annie because she was already dead and Cas because… well, he was Cas. He could angel out if he needed to.

George's whimpers turned to screams of pain. Dean had promised not to look, but from the corner of his eyes he could see that George was now on all fours on the ground in some pain and he didn't look as much as a fussy college professor now. This was something else, breaking through.

Something monstrous.

The screaming stopped, but the transformation went on and on.

Time to go.

Dean left the vamps' victims – nothing he could do for them now and they'd slow him down too much – picked up the bag George had dropped and then made for the door.

He wasn't the only one with that bright idea. Two vamps tried to make a run for it. Since the super soaker was still in his hand, he shot a beam of water at both of them, which put a stop to the running quickly enough. He put the super soaker away and staked them both through the heart, one after the other.

They literally fell apart and crumbled into dust.

Interesting.

If he were Sam, he would have stayed around to geek out over that – Sam really didn't get his priorities straight sometimes – but then he'd either be dead or having the real wolf experience himself next month and neither sounded good. Behind him the screaming started up again, but this time it was animalistic and the screams turned to howls pretty darn quickly.

He opened the door – the stupid little bell rang merrily above his head – and shut it behind him. The thing opened inwards, but Mitchell had been given a key once upon a time and he'd never got round to giving it back. Ideally, it was just a matter of locking up and waiting to see what happened next. The garbage container was just to give any potentially escaping vampires another obstacle to deal with while Dean staked them through the heart. Idly he reflected that at least the dust would end up straight where it belonged.

He was not a moment too soon. Inside the party had turned into a nightmare. Howls mixed with terrified screams as the killing started up in earnest.

Dean simply put the brakes on, took a stake in each hand and prepared to stand guard.

Mitchell cursed under his breath. Sam was tempted to do the same if he'd thought it would help. Nina writhed, the frantic struggling of those who know only too well they are in mortal danger, but she couldn't seem to break free. She didn't make a sound, but her face was a study in naked terror.

'Let her go, Herrick,' Mitchell pleaded, voice soft and conciliatory. 'She has nothing to do with this.'

'Ah, but she is your dog's little girlfriend, isn't she?' Herrick didn't even break a sweat. 'You wouldn't want anything to happen to her now, would you? Let's call her insurance for good behaviour.'

'A hostage, you mean,' Sam said.

Herrick turned his attention on him. 'Ah, the other Winchester.'

At first glance there was nothing much impressive about Herrick. He wasn't tall and neither was he particularly fit. The police uniform provided extra padding to the fleshy padding he already had. But there was something about his face that made the hairs on the back of Sam's neck stand on end. He'd met demons who'd been less scary than this vamp.

'Here to observe the proceedings, are you? Where's your brother?'

'Took a girl to a party.' Which was true. Sort of.

'And left you to do his dirty work. Nothing new there.' He shrugged. 'Well, Mitchell, as invigorating as all this small talk is, shall we get down to business? I've got places to be, empires to create…'

'The killing stops,' Mitchell said. 'You let me go. You don't come near George and Annie. And you leave Bristol.'

Herrick barked out a laugh. 'Leave Bristol? Why would I do that?'

'Because the killing's got out of hand.' To this Sam had a quick answer. 'You've been noticed.'

Herrick waved that away as if it didn't matter. 'No one's going to investigate. That's what the system is for.' He indicated himself, just in case it wasn't clear what he meant. 'I am the police.'

'I don't answer to the police.'

Herrick dragged Nina up straight, as if Mitchell and Sam had somehow forgotten that she was there. 'Such a shame that we must now speak in threats. I had hoped to solve this in a civilised manner.'

His eyes flashed black and the teeth came out.

Sam reached behind him and pulled out the super soaker that Dean had bought this afternoon. At first he'd groaned at his brother's childishness – he had to remind himself that his brother wasn't actually four years old sometimes – but then Dean had explained and okay, it was still childish and whimsical and Bobby would never let them live it down if he heard about it, but it could work.

Herrick laughed, but only until the first volley hit him square in the face. Instinctively he let go of Nina in favour of clawing at his face as though that could make the pain go away.

'Nina, run!' Mitchell urged her.

She did, but in the wrong direction. If she had any sense, she would have made for the door, back into the hospital where there were other people around. Clearly she didn't, because she ran straight at them and hid behind them.

'What on Earth is going on here?' she demanded.

'Explain later,' Mitchell said.

'But…'

They'd never know what she wanted to say, because Herrick had recovered from his encounter with the holy water enough to lunge forwards. Mitchell grabbed Nina and pulled her to the right, while Sam dodged to the left to avoid a collision of fangs with throat. Crap, that vamp was a lot faster than he had anticipated. Sam shot off another beam of water, but it was a crappy shot fired as he moved and it splashed harmlessly against the uniform padding.

'That was not so nice,' Herrick observed. The black eyes were very reminiscent of those of a demon.

Not a good association, because the craving intensified tenfold. Would his blood perhaps…?

Sam stopped himself right there. Now was definitely not the time. Instead he unleashed another volley of water and this time it was Herrick who was forced to leap out of its path. Instead it hit Mitchell, who had been behind Herrick trying to manhandle an uncooperative Nina out of harm's way.

'Crap!'

Mitchell simply blinked the water out of his eyes and carried on. The holy water hadn't done him any harm as far as Sam could see. It was just water to him.

So intent does matter, Sam observed with interest. If he made it back to the States in one piece, he should remember to tell Bobby about it. He filed it away for future reference.

His next shot did hit Herrick in the throat, so he used his temporary inattentiveness to re-join Mitchell and Nina, the latter of whom was now furious as well as terrified. 'What is happening? Will somebody tell me what is happening?' It was more of an order than a question and implied dire consequences if she didn't get an answer sometime very soon.

So Sam gave it to her. 'Herrick is a vampire trying to kill us all. Mitchell and I are trying to deal with him.'

That rendered her speechless.

Sam used the opportunity to shove the super soaker into her hands. 'Holy water,' he told her. 'You know how to use one of these?'

'You want me to shoot a "vampire" with "holy water"?' The incredulity dripped from every syllable.

'Only that vampire,' Mitchell said.

Before she could ask what he meant by that, Herrick was back on his feet and ten times angrier than he had been before. Sam reached for a stake with one hand and a crucifix with the other. Mitchell only had the stake, so Herrick turned to him as the easiest prey.

Only he wasn't, Sam realised. Mitchell still had George's Star of David in his pocket, even if he had apparently forgotten all about it. And if the holy water didn't hurt him when an ally accidentally shot him and the religious imagery didn't cause him untold pain when it was the treasured possession of a good friend, then it stood to reason that he could use that treasured possession to defend himself.

'George's Star,' he hissed at Mitchell. 'Use the Star!'

Mitchell didn't get it immediately, but only for a second or so. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace. It still didn't look like it was actually painful to him, but Herrick cringed the moment it entered his line of sight, hissing in anger and pain.

He definitely needed to have a word with Bobby.

That would have to wait, though, because this was not over yet, but at least they had the upper hand now. Herrick knew it too, because after a moment's hesitation, he decided that this was a fight he could not win and he could always come back another day with more henchmen to finish the job. He turned around and made for the door.

Just not for very long.

Nina was a woman who'd had enough. She had been dragged up to the roof by something she'd been informed was a vampire and now found herself in the middle of a supernatural struggle she previously knew nothing about. All things considered, she had dealt with the whole supernatural revelation rather well. She was probably scared out of her wits, but she knew where the danger came from.

It turned out that she was a very good shot.

The water hit the back of Herrick's neck. He stumbled, hissed and cursed and then went down, flat on his face. Mitchell and Sam didn't waste any time. Both of them sprinted forwards. Sam reached him first, grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him over onto his back, waving the crucifix in his face for good measure.

Herrick hissed.

Then Mitchell was there, still holding the necklace with the Star of David in his left hand and a stake in his right. If this had been one of those cheesy movies Dean liked to watch when he thought Sam was asleep there would be a whole dramatic exchange where both parties made some final points before the villain was killed with appropriate music playing in the background.

This was not a cheesy movie. This was sudden and brutal and quick. Mitchell didn't hesitate for even a moment. He slammed the stake into Herrick's heart with force.

For a moment nothing happened, but then he fell apart. His skin cracked and then disintegrated into dust. All that remained were the clothes.

Sam allowed himself to sit down on the cold stones and Mitchell did the same on the other side of the pile of dust that used to be Herrick.

They weren't allowed to bask in their triumph for long, because Nina was still there, looking oddly threatening in scrubs and with a super soaker in her hands. 'Now will someone explain to me what's going on?'

Next time: Mitchell and Sam have some explaining to do. Dean sets fire to something. It really wouldn't be a proper hunt without something going up in flames, would it?

Thank you very much for reading. Reviews would be appreciated.

Until Friday!